Remember watching The Meteors live in Salisbury back in the 80's, The wrecking crew around the edge of the mosh pit and me talking to Ugly as he was pinching my smokes, good day's and still the meteors are the only pure psychobilly band !!! Shame the crowd here do not seem to be into it ... gather the boys and let's go for a wreck !!!
doesn't matter what way you look at it...Fenech is The Meteors, the drumming leaves a lot to be desired as does bass but Fenech is still big enough and certainly ugly enough to carry it off! Wreckin in Pompey and Stompin at the Klubfoot it certainly ain't but still revives some great and fond memories of the psycho in me that I wish I could find again!
Fenech could hold auditions and take his pick from any number of technically competent session drummers and bassists but he prefers to recruit from his own audience. The result here is a quite unique, self-taught rhythm section. The bass-playing isn't my cup of tea but I like the drummer a lot, he has a great feel for rockabilly. And that's coming from someone who prefers rockabilly in its purest form, strong on bluegrass lineage, without drums.
deranged 666 - Hahaha! Well, I believe he now has a different bass player. I tend to prefer his Raw Deal stuff these days but there's a huge volume of recorded work to take or leave at your discretion.
deranged 666 - Me too, mate, but I didn't get to make the pilgrimage (to see them live) until '83, the year I left school. The trip, the venue (I later found out Hitchin Regal was where they recorded Radioactive Kid and Graveyard Stomp), the crack of meeting like-minded ne'er-do-wells, the amplifier feedback-like buzz of the gig itself, the rare records I purloined in London via my return to moonbase - all was a spiritual experience for me. Not in some hippy-drippy, bottom-touching way. It was affirmation of the cunt I undoubtedly and proudly was. Fortunately I was blessed with enough superficial beauty to offset the repellent nature of my character or I might have ended up a lifelong virgin like my blob-faced, nancy boy big brother. I remember some of the erstwhile teddy boys a year older than me conferring a fleeting trend status on the original Meteors line-up, acquiring a one-time-only haircut to look the part, trooping off to Swindon or somewhere to see them and then dropping them like last season's apres-ski couture. I wasn't like that. I was in no doubt that the Meteors would never die. And even when they did, I was full of admiration, respect and gratitude to Fenech for reanimating the rotting corpse. I even sent them a fan letter once which contained not only a very rough draft of what turned out to be the 'Live in Glasgow' sleeve (Fenech's missus improved my original concept before it went to press) but the origination of the time-served mantra - (all together, kids) Only The Meteors Are Pure Psychobilly. That's not claiming any credit due to the band, it's just a related fact which few will have known. Illustration of Fenech taking influences from his own audience. That he is one of us, not a part-timer who dusts off an entertainer persona at weekends. I can't say I knew any of them personally. I just turned up at gigs every now and then and fitted in. I did buy the Moving Staircases album, and I definitely perceived the respective Escalators and new Meteors sounds as being components stripped from the whole, but the crucial factor for me was in Fenech's music. I could have followed both, I owed no allegiance, but the Escalators didn't do a lot for me. Not knocking them, there was nothing wrong with their music, and I'm sure there are lyrical nuances which would have been wasted on me at the time. In Heaven apparently comprises their full set at time of recording. Various widely distributed bootlegs and BBC radio sessions surely pretty much cover their '80-'82 repertoire. Each of them went on to record other stuff over the years. It's still all there to be appreciated. Those live gigs were a crack, though, aye mate.
deranged 666 - I do know what you mean, mate, and respect your opinion. This isn't my favourite incarnation of the band. Artistically, that has always been the original line-up. Then there were the years of participation among the audience: the dubious camaraderie, the raw, stripped-down r & b, I liked a lot of the new songs as well as the old ones. I grew up with that music in that era so there is also the emotional tie of investing hours of solitude in listening to those early records instead of doing my school homework. Early Meteors and various other rockabillish comprise the overwhelming bulk of my academic achievement. Personally, as I said before, I tend to prefer the Raw Deal stuff these days. And some of his solo stuff. I find that quite reminiscent of early era. Anything musical conceived by Fenech will be a reference point of interest to me. I'm pretty sure he has a fiercely loyal following of younger generations which continues to give him lyrical inspiration. He even solicited digital voice samples through the band's website a few years ago and dubbed them onto one of his studio tracks. I thought that was a nice touch of creative audience interaction. A real bond with his audience.
deranged 666 - I'm not sure I've yet found my own raisin d'etre so I'd be wary of scrutinizing anyone else's, but - I'd hazard a guess at the point in carrying on being audience interaction. The audience are very loyal to the band. Why cease and desist? I never saw the original Raw Deal but I know Fenech was in a rock n roll band called Hound Dog prior to that. I've seen a homemade publicity shot. Did you ever see that band?
deranged 666 - I reckon most of us who bought In Heaven also had the first Deltas album. Just as wild as the Meteors in my book but no discernible punk influence and no b-movie lyrics. I've since replaced it on CD and still listen to (parts of) it. Also always had a soft spot for the Flying Saucers. They were one of the few teddy boy bands whose rockabilly was convincing, for me. And on that 'Home Grown Rockabilly' LP, even though there were tracks by the Polecats and the Meteors (my two favourite bands at the time), I always liked those Kool Kats tracks at least as much. It was a few years later that I found out the Kool Kats were the Flying Saucers.
+Mckinley Chadwick I was a fan for years. Last time I saw them live, it was awful. Same beat on every song. This bass player sang(shouted) most of the set. Played mostly new tracks(which are garbage) which pretty much have the same lyrical content since the last 20-25 years of writing. Sloppy-don't-give-a-shit-gimme-your-money guitar playing. 20$ for the show. Fucking sad.
I Do think the Meteors songs post Nigel Lewis are more suited to an electric bass . Pauls electric dosnt really go with a double bass , semi acoustics go better with double bass . Electric guitars with electric basses .
Just slightly... I have vhs-videos Meteors live 20 years ago. Maybe I should move them to PC and upload to YT. Don´t know the quality thou, have been in storage.
Paul Fenech seems to have lost it on the way. He used to be a really good guitarist with some punchy vocals, but as he grew older he doesn't seem to care that much anymore. They really sound like they don't give a shit and the only thing they want is go to the bar at the end of the gig. 40 years on the road can do that to anybody.
So many times I search for a legendary classic Australian Rock band and find out someone has pinched the name. A little while ago it was Spectrum, and now this.
